


Uncovered

by northern



Series: where you can always find me [8]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Uncomfortable Conversations, failed kink negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:45:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northern/pseuds/northern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More uncomfortable conversations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncovered

**Author's Note:**

> Start with part one of the series, or you will probably be confused.
> 
> Thank you Elizaria and Damnslippyplanet for beta!

"I'm curious," Will says over his second refill of whiskey on the patio. The light is disappearing quickly now in the evenings, and he is already more of a shadow than a man in a wicker chair.

When nothing more follows, Hannibal lights the small tea candles on the low table and refills his own whiskey tumbler. He studies Will in the increased lighting. There is nothing in particular that seems pressing from the set of his features, but Hannibal decides to indulge him by asking.

"What is it that you're curious about?"

Will empties his glass and sets it down. "What do you think about?" he asks. "When you wear the collar. What goes on in your mind? I see how hard it is for you."

Hannibal leans back, his chair creaking. He watches the liquid in his glass, the way it glints in the soft candle light.

"Some things are more difficult than others," he says.

"Mm, yes. What are the most difficult ones?"

That's not something Hannibal is sure he really wants to share, depending on what Will is probing for. "Are you running out of ideas?"

Will drags his hand over his face. "Some people talk about what they do, in order to make adjustments. We've done this for a while now, and I guess… I don't know."

He sits forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. It makes the candlelight move in an interesting way over his face. Hannibal would like to draw him like that some time.

"You tell me what you want and I do it to the best of my ability. What is there to discuss?"

Will sighs. "You might have requests," he says. "This is all so different than anything I've done before. With you, I feel as if I'm walking a tightrope. A dark and silent abyss is below me, and I have no way of knowing what awaits me if the rope should break." He shrugs. "Talking about it might help."

Hannibal feels a slight frustration rising. It seems like disturbing a holy silence, to talk about what has developed between them. But if Will wants requests… There is something he does want. "Let me touch you," he says, quickly, so he won't decide not to after all.

"Touch me?"

"I want to feel your skin against mine. Give you pleasure. If you're at all inclined to let me, I would…" Hannibal can't quite bring himself to beg, at least not in this setting. "I would very much like that."

Will stays silent for a long time, Hannibal's words growing heavier in the air between them. "My inclination is not the problem," he says at last. "The way you looked when I touched you… I wanted to do more."

"Then why didn't you?" Hannibal exclaims, somewhat impatiently. "You won't let me touch you, you didn't even look at me…"

Will looks up. "What was the most difficult thing — not being allowed to touch me or me not looking at you?"

Hannibal has given himself away. But it's near impossible not to do so with Will. He may well have known before this moment, spinning the conversation out to see what Hannibal will acknowledge. "Both," he admits, tired of dissembling. "They are both difficult in their own way. I am unused to inaction, and it… discomfits me when you will not look at me." Will may do with the information as he wishes.

"I'd noticed, yes," Will says. "Although at times it seems the other way around. That it's too hard to meet my eyes."

"If you tell me to meet your eyes, I'll do it," Hannibal says. Will has been remarkably sparing with actual commands. His power rests mostly on Hannibal's own determination.

"I'm not sure if it's a good idea for you to touch me," Will says, shifting in his seat. "It might be hard to set limits. I don't want to drown in you."

"You seem content with the idea of me drowning in you," Hannibal can't help but remark. It's an apt description.

"Do you feel unable to get back to the surface?" Will asks.

"I feel…" There doesn't seem to be a way for Hannibal to describe how he feels without using words he doesn't want to use. "I feel as if you've torn me down," he tries instead, talking around it. "As if I'm not myself, or a part of myself that has never seen the light of day, squirming in the bright light."

"And do you feel as if the light is without mercy?" Will asks.

"It is both merciless and merciful, or neither," Hannibal says. This resembles some of his therapy with Bedelia. The shape of it does, at least, but not the degree of importance. "You keep redirecting this conversation."

"Do you feel unfairly questioned?" Will asks. "Then by all means, ask me something."

"Why are you so determined to use this particular method?" Hannibal has asked versions of the question before, but so far Will hasn't given him a satisfying answer.

Will spreads his hands, palms up. "It's what I thought might work, what I could see myself doing. And it does work, to some degree. Or don't you think so?"

"It depends on what your goal is. What do you think about when I wear the collar?" Hannibal asks, although he's wary of what Will might tell him.

"Mostly, I'm just amazed at the things you'll do for me. You're very beautiful like that, when I can… pull things out of you." Will's smile is small and apologetic.

Hannibal has enjoyed his share of raw and artful reactions drawn out of people under his care, even if he's always been more interested in the end result. Will is not Hannibal, however, no matter how much they've intertwined.

"That is what you enjoy the most? My expressions of… vulnerability?" The word feels dirty in his mouth, but there is nothing else that fits.

"Do you remember what I said when we started this? That I was used to skittish animals?"

Hannibal inclines his head. Those words had stuck like burrs in his mind, sharp and clinging.

"I had thought I might train you with patience, and you might become… softer? More accessible to me. Less dangerous to fall into."

"Did you seek to domesticate the wolf?" Hannibal asks, because the idea is at once laughable and abhorrent.

Will's mouth twitches. "In a way. I took a concept from my earlier experience and tried to fit it on you — adjusting where I thought things needed adjustment."

"And do you feel successful in this endeavor?"

"I think I do, but not in the way I planned it in my mind."

"In what way does it differ?" Hannibal asks, although they are fast approaching things he may not want to hear after all.

"I had thought I might establish a pattern. Something to keep the flood at bay, if needed. But instead I found the water running in the other direction, and the pattern only intensifies the flow." He chuckles almost soundlessly. "You're not much of a dog, are you?"

Hannibal takes a sharp breath to quell the sting of the rebuke. "I promised you, to the best of my ability," he says.

"I know. I don't mean it as criticism. What I do to you, it reaches deeper than I thought it would. I can see it. You're not going in the direction I expected, but the way it touches you — it's intoxicating."

"You wanted a way to hurt me."

"No," Will says. "No. I wanted a way to reach into you and touch something and move it. To see the ripples on the pond instead of just the blank surface."

"And this is where you feel successful."

"You show me more than I had hoped for. You're beautiful — a creature made of fear and longing."

Hannibal's chest blooms with heat, deep inside him. It's daunting, the way Will can undo him with his words and his focus. He takes a breath, amazed to find it hitches in his throat.

"You don't like to see yourself like that," Will says, "but I do. Very much."

He is leaning over the table, as if he might get up at any moment, to come closer. Hannibal feels frozen in his seat, half of him wanting Will to touch him, to come envelop him and consume him with his perfect, burning attention, and half of him appalled at himself, so eager to bend at just a word. So weak.

"It's getting cold," he says. It's an obvious retreat, but the conversation has gone past what he can stomach at this moment.

Will watches him, as Hannibal imagines he would watch an animal backing away. "Alright," he says after a beat. "We'll talk more about it another time."

He leans back, his chair creaking loudly, an obscene noise in the stillness of the evening around them, and Hannibal gathers their glasses, deliberately clinking them together in his hand.

"Good night," Hannibal says and leaves Will sitting there, the candlelight still playing over his face, making its interesting shapes.


End file.
